Last Friday the Liberals Shadow Treasurer, Peter Gutwein, knocked out a media release thundering about how the Liberals could cut $128.7 million by slashing “Labor’s waste in areas like the army of ministerial staff, travel and government advertising and spin.” The advantage of cuts like these, Gutwein argued, was that “we can make these savings without sacking people or cutting services.” But the Liberals are all for “government advertising and spin” when they think it is in the interests of the logging industry.

A week earlier the Liberals released their Supporting Sustainable Forestry and Forestry Workers policy. In it they promised that they would spend $200,000 on “an informed and rational debate” aimed at promoting “the sustainable nature of the forest industry in Tasmania and interstate”. The Liberals claim that the expenditure is justified on the basis that “politically-motivated misinformation about the forest industry has affected Tasmania’s reputation interstate and internationally.” (The Liberals policy doesn’t state whether the $200,000 is proposed to be spent over one year or over a number of years).

But in the world of advertising and spin, $200k is small potatoes for a campagn, let alone for one aimed at reversing the toxic reputation of the Tasmanian logging industry. The Liberals claim that they will encourage “other stakeholders in the industry to also provide support” but it is hard to imagine that an industry in financial freefall is going to stump up much hard cash. Just imagine the reaction Gutwein would get if he went knocking on the door of Gunns or Forest Enterprises Australia asking for a spare few hundred thousand right now.

In return for wanting to squeeze some cash out of the industry, the Liberals want the parameters of the “rational debate” to be determined “with stakeholders and the industry”. The campaign, the Liberals state, will feature “educational material which emphasizes the environmental practices in the industry.” (‘Stakeholders’ is one of those much abused terms that implies all-inclusiveness when it is so often used to describe farcical consultation exercises intended to marginalise dissenting opinions. The Liberals use of the term makes it clear that only ‘stakeholders’ supporting the forestry status quo will be involved in designing the campaign).

The reality is that the Liberals proposed $200,000 pro-logging propaganda campaign will be a waste of public funds that will achieve little. If the Liberals manage to form a minority government, the odds are that they would be under pressure from the logging industry to spend far, far more than the promised $200,000 to make any inroads to the Tasmanian logging industry’s credibility problems.

There is a broader problem in the Liberals position too. Hodgman’s support for a spin campaign to rehabilitate the Tasmanian logging industry exposes his opposition to Bartlett’s advertising campaigns as hypocritical. Having decried Labor’s “government advertising and spin” campaigns in opposition, the Liberals are now signaling that they are willing to fund them if they get to sit on the government benches. Having proposed an advertising campaign to support the logging industry, it is hard to believe that the Liberals wouldn’t come to embrace big-spending PR campaigns to help defend other controversial policies and projects too.

Typical political response Bob. If someting is proven to be broken then the best thing to do is to throw a bucket of someone elses money (ours) at the problem then tell us in a glossy ad that it really is working.
In the case of the Tree Mining Industry, we will soon be able to see the evidence of their claims, we will be able to stand on any high mountain and see clear across Tasmania.

Posted by Pete Godfrey on 10/03/10 at 07:08 AM

So now we see just what the likes of Liberal Peter Gutwein has in his brain-box?
The woeful need to pour money into a program that fights honest public opinion, so we see here the difference is absolutely nought, and is cast from the same mould as that of our worlds best Treasurer in the form of Michael Aird.
What a poor showing from the Liberals, so this is what we can expect from a Liberal majority government, running scared from the lords of the forest?
Why bother having such as the Liberals if this is all that they intend?
The object of having government in leadership is to be seen to be acting in the interests of all Tasmanians, not just the demanding bosses of forestry, whom seem unable to function as a profitable community accepted enterprise?

Perhaps the forestry employess will next want cut-lunches prepared for them, as the industry overlords seem so grossly inept and or incapable in looking after their work engaged people?
The entirety of the Tasmanian Liberal Party proposals, reads like a transcript direct from the forestry entities.
I note that the Liberal Party says money should be expended in promoting the sustainability of forestry in Tasmania. This sort of nothingness when forestry now has proven its unsustainability?
What a load of old cobblers this is when the collective of the forestry industry is in downward spiral due to its own failed planning actions and in-house awarenesses, then begin standing their employees in queues with their hands poking out for freebies to stay alive?
If this is the height of intellectualism within the Liberal Party, why bother with any and all of their nothing-burger ideals?

For goodness sakes, The Greens are offering bail-out compromises for the out of control forestry industry, do vote for The Greens to appease this imbalance of poor planning and poor governance.

Posted by William Boeder on 10/03/10 at 07:47 AM

“Will Hodgman’s arse is melting on the grass
All the sweet, cream icing flowing down
Someone left the policies in the rain
I don’t think that I can take it
Because it took so long to half-bake it
Will Eric dictate it all again?

Oh no!
Oh no!”

But wait, here comes EricaA now with Marvin Gaye:

“Ain’t no mountain high enough (Oo-w!)
Ain’t no valley low enough (Oo-hoo)
Ain’t no river wide enough
To keep me from you!
If you ever need a helping hand
I’ll be there on the double
Just as fast as I can
Don’t you know that
There ain’t no mountain high enough
Ain’t no valley low enough
Ain’t no river wide enough
To keep me, keep me from you!”

Posted by sabina01 on 10/03/10 at 07:37 PM

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